Sweetheart-Darlin'
by Toasterman
Summary: Jim Raynor popped the cork on a bottle of whiskey and drank it all in one long drink, because he was a drunk. He used to be a colonial marshal but now he was just a drunk. He felt the whiskey burn its way down his throat—which was super-cliché of the whiskey, but the liquid couldn't help it. Then he threw the bottle across the room.
1. Chapter 1

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter One**

Sarah Kerrigan stopped being invisible and took cover behind a wall. She was very pretty with red hair, but it was hard to be pretty when the Zerg were coming to kill her.

"I need an evac," she muttered to herself. New Gettysburg was covered with Zerg, and Sarah Kerrigan was confused. Mostly she was confused by if New Gettysburg was a space platform or not. Sometimes it felt like a city, but other times it felt like a space platform. She wondered if she was high.

"I need an evac," she said again, this time into her radio.

Up in orbit, Arcturus Mengsk stood on the bridge of his battlecruiser, the Hyperion. He ate a hot pocket and watched as the Zerg devoured Tarsonis. He tryied to spot New Gettysburg, but he couldn't because he wasn't sure if it was a space platform or not. Mengsk thought about that for a second, licking crumbs of food from his beard. A part of him wished he was better at eating.

"We're leaving orbit," he said, having heard Kerrigan's evac request. But he didn't care because he had secretly been an asshole this whole time, ever since Mar Sara.

"What?" shouted Jim Raynor over a TV. He was so shocked by Mengsk that he had forgotten to be on his hoverbike. "You're not just gonna leave her there!?"

Mengsk spared him a brief glance as he munched. "I think I am, Marshal."

"Arcturus, you slimy sonuvabitch!"

"All ships, prepare to commence warp translation on my mark!" Mengsk snapped his very old pocket watch in the future shut. He looked at Raynor's face, all flickery on the screen. "I'll be seeing you, Raynor."

Back on the New Gettysburg—which by now was halfway between ground level and orbit, as it had always been an amiable structure willing to make compromises on its appearance—Sarah Kerrigan was shooting at a Hydralisk. She totally blew it away, shooting it like five times in the neck and face with her sniper rifle while she combat rolled backwards, her red ponytail flowing in a way that was super-hot and gave me a boner. The Hydralisk fell down, blood ka-chooming out of its wounds in that slow-mo way that tells you how totally fucking dead it is because look at all that ketchup blown all over everywhere. Sarah Kerrigan is such a badass even before she is made of Zerg.

"Hey boys," she said into her radio, in a way that was super casual considering her about-to-die status, "how about that evac?"

But she was getting no evac. She knew the fleet had left orbit, either because she was in orbit herself and could see it happen, or because she could feel it with her psychic powers from on the ground, but she wasn't sure either way. New Gettysburg was an intentionally vague place.

The Zerg were coming for her, running all over the ruined buildings like a wave. They were probably going to kill her, and even Sarah Kerrigan could run out of gas in her kill-tank, so she just laid down her sniper rifle and let them swarm all over her. She could hear a choir of sad people wailing in dramatic wails as the mutalisks flew overhead, and then she was dead.

Or was she?


	2. Chapter 2

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter Two**

Jim Raynor popped the cork on a bottle of whiskey and drank it all in one long drink, because he was a drunk. He used to be a colonial marshal but now he was just a drunk. He felt the whiskey burn its way down his throat—which was super-cliché of the whiskey, but the liquid couldn't help it. Then he threw the bottle across the room.

Matt Horner dodged the bottle. "Sir, maybe you wanna—"

"No, Matt!" said Jim Raynor. He poured five shots and then drank them all in machinegun succession. "You don't understand! I lost her. I lost her to the Zerg! My sweetheart-darlin' Sarah! She's gone now, never to return!"

"I know, sir, but perhaps—"

"I don't wanna hear it! You can't heal these wounds with anything but alcohol!" Raynor pointed an angry finger at his second in command. "It's so easy for you to judge. You, who've never loved and lost. What do you want to tell me, Matt? To get over it? To move on and become the great leader you want me to be? To rally the troops, huh? Go ahead and say it, you sonunvabitch."

Horner tightened his lips. "I was just going to suggest that maybe the bridge isn't the best place for you to ride your Vulture."

Raynor leaned back in the saddle and crossed his arms. The turbo fan of his hoverbike groaned quietly, blowing papers and shit everywhere. "Well, well, well," he said, his eyes bubbly from the drink. Raynor smiled and began hovering around the bridge. It was like pacing, but with more injuries as the bladed prow of his gigantic bike cut into the legs of the bridge crew. Some avoided it, only to suffer first degree burns from his roaring thrusters. "Tryin' to separate a Mar Saran from his loyal steed and beloved drink. What kind of a man are you?"

"The kind of man who would like to be able to maneuver around his own command center, sir."

"Yer a pussy boy."

"Sir, please leave. We're trying to work here."

"Let's get something straight, _Matt_." Raynor hovered around to glare at Horner. "I'm in charge on this here stolen spaceship. If I wanna drink my brains out while scootin' about on this here scooter, I'll damn well feel obliged to do so. You get me?"

Horner frowned. "I get you, sir."

"Good." Raynor checked his saddlebag, but it was empty. "Shit. I'm gonna leave now, but not because you said so. I'm just out of whiskey."

"Absolutely, sir."

"Yeah, now then." Raynor sat up in his saddle and adjusted his very cool leather vest that was never buttoned. "Matt, please get the door for me."

Horner got the door. A week later they crash landed on Char.


	3. Chapter 3

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter Three**

And then the chrysalis exploded and there was Kerrigan, reborn as the Queen of Blades! And the Overmind was all, "She's super cool. I'm very pleased with myself."

And his cerebrates were like, "Aw, fuck. She's got legs." And the cerebrates found her legs unfair, since they, as lumpy piles of shit, had none to speak of, really. Saddest of all was Daggoth, who worried that his friend the Brovermind might begin to put hoes before bros, and also maybe kill him.

Raynor was there also but on a hoverbike. He was like, "Sweetheart-Darlin' Kerrigan!" which was his nickname for her since always.

But the Queen of Blades didn't give a shit. That was a nickname from a life half-remembered, now buried in spikey microbes that wiggled around in her cerebral cortex. "Jim," she said. "You suck. I'm with the Overmind now."

This hurt Jim Raynor's feelings. "But why, Sarah!?"

"Because of Mengsk."

"That slimy bastard!"

"Maybe, but I am slimy now too, Jim. I am the slimiest." She spread her wings, which were covered in slime. "The slime of my rebirth in the uterus of the swarm! The afterbirth of life is Zerg!"

"Ew. That's disgusting, Sweetheart-Darlin'."

Daggoth jiggled and vibrated his flabby butt, which was how all cerebrates made words. "I agree with the biker man," he said.

Raynor gestured with his flask. "See? Faggoth's got my back."

"Daggoth."

Raynor frowned. "Do you wanna be my bro or not?"

"Yes," Daggoth said, truthfully. "You seem really cool."

"Thanks, man."

"Yeah. I wish I could have a rakishly unbuttoned leather vest with a _pack of cigarettes rolled up in my t-shirt sleeve, with a tattoo on my arm that says 'baby', and another one that just says 'hey'_."

"Well," said Kerrigan. "Then you'd be_ running from a man in old Oklahoma City with a five hundred gallon tank_."

_"Oh, Rockin' Roy that stock car boy,_" Raynor sang, banging out a drumbeat on his handlebars,_ "he's too much to believe._"

The Overmind boomed in. "Are we singing Jim Croce songs!? _Well he a bad, bad, Leroy Brown—_"

Everyone groaned. Raynor rolled his eyes. "Fucking ruined it, Overmind."

"Seriously." Kerrigan shook her fist at the giant eyeball. "You ruin everything, Dad!"

"But I like Jim Croce, too!" protested the leader of the swarm.

"We don't like it, Dad. We were being ironic." Daggoth rolled over so that the spinal fluid in his butt vat washed stank everywhere, and everyone could taste his farts. This was the cerebrate equivalent of an emo shrug. "You don't understand anything."

"Jim Croce sucks, Dad! Gerard Way forever!" Kerrigan threw her iPod at the Overmind. "I wish I was fucking dead!"

Raynor rolled up closer on his bike. "I thought you were dead, Sweetheart-Darlin'!"

"Jim, drop the knight in shining armor routine." Kerrigan jumped down and ran her leg up his thigh. It was suggestive. Mostly it suggested sex. "I'll be okay here. The Overmind cares about me."

"I really do. You're my greatest—"

"DAD FUCK OFF FOR LIKE ONE MINUTE." A blast of psionic energy knocked the lava around them in wavelike splashes. "I'M TRYING TO KISS MY EX-BOYFRIEND!"

The Overmind fucked off, closing the igneous cave behind him.

Raynor drank an entire cask of grain alcohol and looked into the golden eyes of his love. He was pretty drunk, but he loved the shit out of her. "I love the shit out of you," he told her.

"I know, Raynor. But I am a Zerg, and probably will be for life."

"_Sing us a song, you're the piano man,"_ shouted Daggoth. "_Sing us a song tonight!"_

There was a valley nearby filled with zerglings, who all raised their voices in unison, a shrieking, terrifying chorus. _"We're all in the mood for a melody, and you've got us feeling all right!_"

"What's up with all this fucking singing?" Raynor asked.

"It's the lava." Kerrigan shrugged. "You get used to it."

Raynor was going to ask what the hell that meant, but Kerrigan shoved his bike away, which sent it skidding up into low orbit and into the Hyperion's cargo bay. He landed next to the guy with the claw who worked on all the upgrades. Raynor wasn't sure of his name, but he was sure it was that of a water-dwelling mallard.

"Duck," he said. "Tell Horner to get us the hell out of here. I'm done with this fucking planet."


	4. Chapter 4

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter Four**

"Char was hard, man." Raynor popped the tab on a can of beer and drank it all at once. This was a little fast, but it was a normal-sized can, so he felt like it was okay. It was important to start off slow. He drank seven more in quick succession.

"Indeed," agreed Zeratul. He was the Prelate of the Dark Templar, which didn't mean fuck all to Raynor. In fact, it didn't mean fuck all to Zeratul, either. All it really meant was that he had a higher 'indeed' quota than most Protoss. He had to say at least six 'indeeds' in every conversation, otherwise he lost his Protoss privileges. "It was a difficult journey, but we sauntered on as brothers."

"You want a beer?" Raynor shook his head. "Ah, shit, Zeratul. I forgot you don't have a mouth. No way you can drink a beer without no mouth."

"Incorrect. Indeed, I possess no mouth, but we Protoss have other ways of consuming alcohol."

"Whatever you say, pal." Raynor tossed him a can, and grabbed a triple-X jug of moonshine for himself. "I'm just gonna get tanked."

"Indeed." Zeratul stood from his seat and pulled off his robed undershorts. He popped the tab on the can and took a breath.

Raynor stood up. "Whoa, whoa! The fuck is going on!?"

"Drinking," said Zeratul, and jammed the can up his butthole. Raynor heard the alien's cheeks clench by the way the can crumpled in the Dark Templar's powerful sphincter. Protoss sphincters were toothed, designed to facilitate the intake of solid food in case of a lack of photosynthesis. There was a wet sucking noise, a butthole gurgle, and the destroyed can plopped out onto the deck. It looked like an origami swan.

"I don't even—"

"Indeed you do not." Zeratul grabbed another can. "This beverage is quite enjoyable. I now understand why Honored Fenix chooses to associate with you on such regular occasion."

"I can't watch this." Raynor turned away, gunning his vulture to spin it about face. Crew members dove for cover as the forked prow knocked over two gaming tables and a crate of poorly-stored ammunition.

Horner entered. "Sir, you can't be driving that around in here anymore. It's a hazard."

"Indeed." Zeratul gave a psychic grunt that bred brief nightmares in the minds of everyone in the bar. "Vehicles are meant for outside use, not unlike an outside."

"Exactly!" said Horner.

"Or like an outside lawnmower," said Raynor.

Horner frowned. "There isn't really an inside equivalent for a lawnmower, sir."

"If you seen my old lady's bush, you'd know just how wrong you are."

"Sir, please." Horner looked past Raynor at Zeratul. "Are you drinking through your asshole?"

"INDEED."

The _Hyperion_ sailed on.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter Five**

Fenix moved like a robotic jumping jack, all rolly and tumbly and made of gold. He was a deceptively agile mechanized protoss. He was also deceptively perceptive, which meant he sometimes used human slang when he wasn't supposed to. It was funny and also very characterful of him to say human stuff, and it gave Fenix much happiness in his cold metal goo heart.

"Fenix, turn down the whoop-ass!" said Jim Raynor. "You're killing all the zerg!"

That much was true. Fenix tumbled into the zerg line, crushing smaller types of zerg beneath his weight. Hydralisks tried to stop him but Fenix didn't give a shit and shot them with his phase disruptor. Then he ran them over.

"Indeed!" he bellowed, because even dead protoss in amniotic casks had an Indeed Quota befitting their rank. Fenix's Indeed Quota was five. "I can throw down like a downtown brown hound."

"That ain't quite slang, buddy-pal," said Raynor.

"What does that mean, my unlikely but very close true friend?"

Raynor tried to respond, but he was finding it very difficult to talk because when he talked the booze got in his throat and choked him, which then made it very hard to steer. His vulture veered and burned off a marine's face.

"Fuck!" shouted the marine, though it came out like "ggguurfurhguhghffff" on account of how he didn't have a face anymore.

"James Raynor," Fenix said, stopping his tumble-attack. "You have injured a comrade."

"My liver ain't so much a comrade as it is an organ-bit."

"Indeed it is, but that yonder warrior was injured by your mechanical steed." Fenix gestured at the burning marine. Don't worry about how.

"He'll be alright. Now c'mon, Fenix, the light is green!" Raynor gunned his bike and dashed forward, into the zerg lines, and Fenix joined him and they jumped and killed and scooted real quick and the camera dashed back and forth between them like some wicked fight scene where at one point Raynor jumped off his Vulture and rode a Hydralisk into the ground, shooting it over and over with his pistol and then Fenix flashed by phase disrupting the shit out of some zerglings before jumping into the air so that Raynor—who was back on his bike—could zip by under him, grenade launcher booming, and spear an Ultralisk through the stomach with his bladed prow, so that the Ultralisk roared and fought back because it needed to be team-killed and then Fenix landed on its big dumb head and aimed down and turned his phase disruptor into a straight-up face disruptor as he blew off the Ultralisk's face, and as the body fell down Raynor stood up in the saddle and shouted a few bars of _Dixie_ over the din of slaughter and churning ice.

"Commander!" said Horner, over the radio.

"Not now, Matt! I'm bein' awesome!"

"But sir, you need to know that the zerg have reinforcements inbound!"

"Indeed, that is crucial information Matthew Horner," said Fenix, "but we know how's to lay the smacketh-down, my boy toy."

"I feel uncomfortable," said Horner.

"Indeed, as do I, Matthew Horner. My primary armament is mounted on my belly, which hangs near the ground, yet I am expected to shoot aerial targets! Do you know what this means, Matthew Horner?"

"I really don't—"

"It means, Matthew Horner, that in order to shoot aerial targets, I must, as you humans say, lay upon my back and shoot my load into the skies!"

"We don't say that," said Horner. "That's so homoerotic."

Raynor pulled his vulture out of the Ultralisk and looked down into the valley, where he could see more zerg emerging from the snow as big, looming, spooky shapes, because Braxis is like Hoth and the zerg were like the Empire. "Shit!" said Raynor. "The zerg done brought reinforcements!"

"Indeed they have, James Raynor." Fenix sighed. The Quota was satisfied—there would be no Dark Retribution for his soul on this day. "We would do well to have a proper lookout in these scenarios, that we might be informed of such things before they occur."

"Yeah!" Raynor agreed. "Matt, why didn't you say nothing about more zerg?"

In orbit, Matt Horner screamed and threw his headset across the bridge of the _Hyperion_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter Six**

Jim Raynor fired his Impaler rifle, impaling a Dominion Marine whose own Impaler then fell from his grip and impaled the mud at his feet. The _Hyperion _flew overhead, shitting lasers on everything. Raynor scooted along underneath it, Impaler firing, his other hand laying that throttle all the way open. He was also drunk despite not having a free hand to drink with. Raynor didn't need one. God made straws and duct tape for a reason.

"Jimmy-boy!" shouted Tychus, who was also there. "I'm having trouble keepin' up!"

Raynor turned in his seat, the moonshine tank on his back sloshing around. "Muwarfu gooahphoo!" he said, around the straw. Tychus nodded in understanding.

"I hear you, Jimmy-jam." He loaded his Impaler's bayonet, which was a weird thing to have on a gun that basically fired knives, but Tychus figured fuck it. You could always use another method of impaling. There were vampires in this hills, after all.

He was wrong about that. There were only Dominion soldiers, which Raynor and he were fighting for a reason, probably. If Tychus waited long enough, he figured Horner would recap it for him.

"Marshal!" Horner said, over the radio. "We need to get the artifact out of the Terrazine factor to give to the artifact foundation so that our colonist doctor friend can make a way to hack into the Dominion channels and fulfill our contract to Mr. Tosh!"

Raynor pulled around on his bike and set it down, crushing a Dominion marine under its weight. He impalered the guy in the visor and spit the straw out of his mouth. "Matt, I'm not clear on how any of this helps me get Kerrigan back."

"Don't seem to me like it does, Jommy-Hambone," Tychus offered. "But I've definitely got a good gig through some good buyers and they could get you upgrades."

"What kinda upgrades though, Tychus?" Raynor asked, in an uncharacteristic moment of actually fucking thinking.

"Uh," Tychus muttered. "Cats? Like, robot cats? I think? Maybe some big dropships or whatever?"

"I need more information on this," Raynor said. Bullets or spikes landed around him, but couldn't hit him because the Dominion wasn't sure what their Impalers fired anymore. One moment they were 8mm spikes, the next moment the ammo crates said .50 caliber and the rounds had shell casings. It was very confusing.

"Sir, you can find more information on upgrade choices at the Swan console," Horner said. "Right now you need to focus up and become the leader we all know you can be and have been waiting for."

"Don't listen to him, Jombo-Jackhammer!" Tychus set a hand on Raynor's shoulder. "I am an old and trustworthy friend who has a clear dark secret! Believe in me!"

"Sir, he's clearly playing you," Horner said, in the radio. "You need to focus on—"

"I trust ya, Tychus."

"—fuck."

Raynor slurped more moonshine and cranked the throttle. "Let's go pull the foundation outta this artifact plant and hand over some tosh to Mr. Terrazine! I'm gonna maybe bang that Zerg doctor and get me a fuckin' cyborg pussy!"

Tychus grinned in a way that was both familiar and evil. "Damn right, Jamjum-McCoy. Let's do this like we used to in our origin days."

"I'm gonna get a skull on my helmet!" Raynor said, and took off into the distance, toward the Terrazine plant. "Skulls are cool!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Sweetheart-Darlin'**

**Chapter Seven**

Raynor looked into the spooky Protoss crystal and saw the age of apocalypse, but with a lot of Protoss in it.

"The Hybrids are here!" said Artanis, whose Indeed Quota was seven.

"Indeed," replied Zeratul, who stood on the ground with an Indeed Quota of six, now five. "We must pull our forces together if we are to survive this encounter."

"Indeed we will," said the female Protoss, who had an Indeed Quota of only four, because girls aren't as strong. "But I fear survival is not, how would Fenix say? In the cards."

"Ah, Terranisms," said Artanis. "Indeed, I shall miss them. They were hairy and useful for a time."

A fucking hybrid came out of the mist at the edge of forever, on this space platform at the end of the universe, and it was goddamn huge. It looked like Cthulu took a shit on a Protoss. Zeratul wondered if he could stab it to death.

Artanis clearly thought he could. "Zeratul, use your warp blade!"

"You are in a carrier," Zeratul replied. "Why are we relying on my warp blade?"

"You're very good with it."

"Indeed I am, but I have learned that in some instances I am deceptively bad at combat." Zeratul gestured at the ship. "And, again, and this should not be understated, you are in a _carrier_."

The Hybrid was upon him. Zeratul jumped up and stabbed at it, his warp blade making a swoosh through the air in a glittering arc of green and eerie light. The Hybrid smacked him in the face and sent him flying. Then it slaughtered a horde of zealots.

"By the Kahla," said Zeratul, shocked by watching four thousand years of combined combat experience just get straight-up mulched. "We are doomed."

"Indeed," said Artanis. "But we shall die in glory!"

The female Protoss looked over. "Executor, what are you—"

"GLORY AND ADUN!" Artanis said, emphasizing his ancestors as he drove the carrier into the Hybrid. Everything exploded into blue light. When the dust cleared, there was a rain of gold and chunked interceptors falling everywhere. Zeratul moved into the burning wreckage, trying to find Artanis or the chick.

"Artanis," he said, with his brain. "Where are you?"

"Here!" said Artanis, popping up from the garbage. "I used the carrier!"

"Indeed, but you destroyed it," Zeratul said. "Could you not have held back and utilized its weaponry? Launched the waves of drones that now lay littered around us?"

Artanis stared at him in youthful idiocy. "I used the carrier!" he said.

"Yes," Zeratul said, sighing.

"I am in charge of a species!" Artanis said.

"Indeed you are." Zeratul looked around. "Did your female die?"

"Indeed she did." Artanis looked at the ground, sad. "Her quota was unfulfilled."

"Dark retribution," Zeratul said, knowingly. "That burden falls on you."

Zeratul walked to his comrade and burned a mark into his soul. "Your count is now nine, increased for the arrogance of your command."

"Indeed, brother," said Artanis. "But at least the Hybrid has perished."

The Hybrid burst up through the wreckage next to them, looking like a black demon but with Samir Duran's face plastered on its tummy. "That's adorable," it said. "You Protoss are garbage. Let's do this."

"Indeed," Zeratul said, "we may be garbage, but we are at the top of, how do the humans say it? _Heap_."

He leapt forward again, heroically. The Hybrid slammed a gaggle of tentacles through the Dark Templar's chest. It then smashed him into the ground thirty-five times until he had no blood left in his body, then it let him lay there, totally dead, and took a fat shit on his corpse. Then it crotch-chopped at him.

"Suck it!" shouted the Hybrid. "Suck my dick!"

"Yeah!" shouted another Hybrid, this one thinner and emerging from the smoke. "Suck our dicks! Where's that Artanis fuck?"

"I stand here!" said Artanis, activating whatever blue weapon he had. I'm going stave? "I shall fight both of you! I shall fight any Hybrid that stands before me, and I shall win! As the Terrans would say, tomorrow's headline reads 'Artanis Stops Apocalypse,' and you cannot do anything to prevent that! I will—"

"PFFFFT!" said the first Hybrid, and then grabbed Artanis by the head and smashed him into the stone. Artanis swung his stave at it, but the weapon did nothing. "Oh, gotcha. Gotcha little guy. Hey, Shawn, come over here. Peep this."

Shawn the Hybrid walked over and knelt down on his forelimbs. "Oh man, look at his little asshole."

"Right?" said the bigger one. "It's so tight. A good little beer chugging hole, right?"

"Oh, yeah."

The Hybrid slid a finger in. Artanis, had he a mouth, would have bit down in pain, but since he did not, he began indeeding into the sky. These were not in answer to anything, and so did not count toward his tally. Without someone to ask proper questions, that quota would never be specified. The only quota here was notches on Artanis's prostate punchcard, and he ran out of spots real quick.

"SSSSSSOOOO TIIIIIIIIGHT!" said one Hybrid, about to—

Raynor dropped the crystal. "Oh, shit. I really need to become the commander everyone's been waitin' for. This is awful."


End file.
